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Global analysis of obesity trends from 1980 to 2024 in 200 countries and territories using data from 4,050 population-based studies reveals that framing obesity as a single global epidemic masks the highly varied dynamics across countries and age groups.

Migration of microbial communities is poorly understood. Here, the authors use a meso-tube assay to show that hundreds of microbial species co-migrate over metre scales via chemotaxis, which restructures communities, enriches motility traits and facilitates dispersal of viruses and non-motile ‘hitchhikers’.

Prime editing is improved with engineered RNA-stabilizing motifs.

Natural products inspire the development of pseudo-natural products through combinations of fragments of compound classes that are chemically and biologically distinct. Here, the authors report a library of 244 pseudo-natural products, evaluate them in the cell painting essays and identify the phenotypic role of individual fragments.

The HIV-1 RNA-binding protein rev facilitates nuclear export of viral RNA. Here, the authors use native mass spectrometry to study the interactions between rev-derived peptides and rev response elements of HIV-1 RNA, providing mechanistic insights into rev recognition and recruitment.

ΨDNA guides are used with Cas12 for precise, programmable targeting of cellular RNA.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Forest biodiversity is linked, in many cases, to the myriad ecosystem services that support the livelihoods of human populations. Authors here examine the demographic, socioeconomic and institutional variables that impact forest biodiversity across 322 tropical forests.

In a randomized trial, pasteurized Akkermansia muciniphila improved weight loss maintenance and metabolic health after a low-energy diet, especially in individuals with initially lower Akkermansia levels. The work suggests leveraging gut A. muciniphila as a potential target for weight management.

Here, the authors develop a repertoire of multivalent nanobodies that target key toxins in Staphylococcus aureus infection that show protective activity in murine models of sepsis and pneumonia.

Johanns and colleagues report the results (including safety, efficacy and immunogenicity) of a phase 1 clinical trial of a DNA-based personalized therapeutic cancer vaccine administered following surgical resection and radiation in patients with MGMT unmethylated glioblastoma.

Many long noncoding RNA–DNA binding peaks detected using common assays arise from technical artifacts.

Exposome analyses across 34 countries showed that social exposures were associated with faster functional brain aging and physical exposures with faster structural brain aging.

Recovery of 48 bat and 9 horse HeV genomes from Australia (2016–2020) identified four Hendra virus clades, offering insights into evolutionary dynamics.

Scenario modelling of nickel supply to meet demand to 2050 identifies extensive overlap between land and coastal mines and high-priority areas for terrestrial and marine conservation, and shows how this tension would increase under a moratorium on deep-sea mining.

Innate immunity relies on interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) to restrict viral infection. We identified virus-specific and synergistic actions among 285 ISGs, revealing BORCS8 as a new ISG that limits SARS-CoV-2 by enhancing early endosome acidification.

A large-scale proteomics analysis of the dark proteome by the TransCODE Consortium reveals many translated non-canonical open reading frames to encode microproteins and peptideins.

Liposomal probes actuated by engineered peptide-based pores control MRI contrast by regulating water access to liposome-encapsulated gadolinium chelators and enable molecular target detection in vivo.

The authors investigated metabolic remodeling in response to stem cell activation and the effect of aging on this response. Aging muscle stem cells lose a key glutamine-fueled metabolic pathway that powers de novo lipogenesis needed for activation. This study shows that reductive TCA cycling helps preserve stem cell function and may offer a new target against sarcopenia.

The authors resolve 63 structurally diverse haplotype structures for the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome region. Deletion risk differs depending on structure; individuals of African ancestry are enriched for inverted repeats that predispose to inversion.

This study shows that brain signals can identify and amplify the voice a person wants to hear in a crowded scene. Choudhari et al. provide evidence that brain-controlled hearing can improve speech perception and clarity in noisy environments.

RNA velocity is a widely used method to predict the fate of single cells. Here the authors show that the concept can be adapted to predict the fate of individual human subjects, using RNA velocity of whole blood at a single point in time to predict future clinical outcomes and treatment responses.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Funding agencies play a critical role in shaping science, yet their inner workings are often inaccessible. Here, the authors show how the NIH cooperated with academics during the Human Genome Project and subsequent genomics initiatives.

Machine-learning analyses in UK Biobank show that lifetime exposures predict brain health, with cardiovascular and metabolic factors emerging as key drivers of brain ageing. It further highlights the importance of early prevention.

Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-T cells with high affinity for their targeted epitopes efficiently kill malignant cells at the expense of excessive and potentially harmful immune activation, while lower-affinity targeting shows a safer profile but compromises tumour cell killing. Here the authors show that the combination of high- and low-affinity CARs results in a T-cell product with maintained functionality while reducing cytokine release and CAR-T-cell exhaustion in mouse models.

Many physical, social, lifestyle and systemic body factors — collectively termed the ‘exposome’ — can influence brain and behavioural phenotypes across the lifespan. In this Perspective, Sarah Genon and colleagues examine how we can gain a better understanding of the exposome’s neurocognitive effects.

This study challenges the paradigm that resistance mutations precede fitness compensatory adaptations, showing that pre-existing alterations in mycobacterial oxidative stress responses can prime rapid evolution of resistance without fitness costs.

Spinster homolog 2 (SPNS2) exports sphingosine-1- 26 phosphate (S1P) out of cells. Here, the authors show that SPNS2 has antiporter-like activity, exporting S1P while importing glucose, revealing a mechanism linking SPNS2 to glucose homeostasis with clinical implications.

OBSCORE is a machine learning-based risk prediction tool that uses a set of clinical features to stratify individuals with a body mass index (BMI) of ≥ 27 kg m⁻² by their 10-year risk of obesity-related complications, outperforming existing models. OBSCORE is generalizable across diverse populations, supporting risk-based prioritization of obesity interventions that goes beyond simple BMI thresholds.

In this study, authors investigate what happens to magma before a volcanic eruption. They find that crystals react to magma flow before it reaches the surface, preserving a mechanical fingerprint of the forces driving eruptions.

The Akt-mTOR axis influences cell activation, differentiation and metabolism. Jordan and colleagues show that thymic and inducible T_H17 cells exhibit different requirements for mTORC1 and mTORC2 as well as Akt isoforms.

Here, the authors show that continuous glucose metrics capture some components of glycaemic physiology in euglycaemic individuals. An evaluation of health outcomes longer-term would be required to assess whether continuous glucose monitoring has utility for health management in this population.

Fatigue is a common side effect of treatment in prostate cancer. Here, the authors carried out a genome wide association study to find correlations between genetic loci and risk of fatigue.

As presented at the 2026 AACR Annual Meeting, in a phase 2 trial, treatment of patients with high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma with BCMA-targeting CAR T cell therapy ciltacabtagene autoleucel was safe and led to encouraging rates of clinical responses.

Estimates of mean ocean temperature based on noble gas (Xe/Kr) measurements in shallow ice cores from the Allan Hills blue ice area, Antarctica, indicate enhanced cooling around the Plio-Pleistocene Transition and enhanced ice sheet growth around the time of the Mid-Pleistocene Transition.

Alterations of therapeutic pressures have been shown to affect clonal evolution of resistance. Here, the authors conducted a single arm, phase 2 trial consisting of alternating osimertinib and gefitinib in non-small cell lung cancer, and found ctDNA dynamics were predictive of response.

MitoCatch is a cell-type-specific mitochondrion-targeting system that links mitochondria and the cell surface by protein binders and delivers mitochondria into the target cell.

As presented at the 2026 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium: results from a phase 1 trial of a first-in-class small-molecule inverse agonist of PPARγ in solid tumors show an acceptable safety profile and preliminary tumor activity in urothelial carcinoma.

During olfactory navigation, Caenorhabditis elegans can execute error-correcting turns. Whole-brain imaging and perturbation experiments identify an ensemble of neurons that control reorientation and turning behaviors.

Using nasal brush biopsies from the olfactory region, single-cell profiling revealed neuroimmune alterations in Alzheimer’s Disease detectable at a pre-clinical stage, offering an accessible window into early neurodegenerative disease in humans.

Theoretical models of resilience have shifted from a focus on factors to a focus on mechanisms. In this Review, Schäfer et al. discuss concrete pathways for updating resilience interventions to reflect current theories and to enhance their effectiveness.

Ventures focusing on gene therapy, adoptive T-cell therapy, protein homeostasis and the microbiome are among those selected by the editors in 2013's crop of startups.

Multi-ancestry GWAS meta-analysis identifies risk loci for severe nausea and vomiting of pregnancy. Downstream analyses explore maternal and fetal contributions of these loci and their temporal effects.

Mapping DNA variants that modulate mortality using a starting population of 6,438 young mice defined 29 distinct loci that influence lifespan and mortality with divergent age- and sex-specific effects, as well as 30 loci that specifically couple body mass with longevity.

Curiosity detected over 20 organic molecules in 3.5-billion-year-old Martian rocks using a wet chemistry experiment, showing complex carbon compounds can survive for billions of years and may preserve clues about Mars’ past habitability

In a phase 1b trial, patients with treatment-naive metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma received the CD73 inhibitor quemliclustat plus gemcitabine and nabpaclitaxel with or without the anti-PD1 antibody zimberelimab, showing encouraging clinical response rates and survival in quemliclustat-treated patients.

The authors use a physiological approach, finding recent extreme heat events had deadly heat stress conditions, particularly for fully exposed older people. Conditions were well below wet-bulb temperatures of 35˚C, a common heat stress indicator.